The Largest Hotel Chain in Texas: Texas Prisons [Paperback]

Lon Glenn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

Overcrowded and understaffed, Texas prisons are nearing the meltdown stage. It wasn't always that way. A few California lawyers and an activist federal judge ruined what was widely acknowledged as the best prison system in the nation. The old judge reached into the pockets of Texas taxpayers and extracted several billion dollars, forcing Texans to undertake the largest prison expansion program in the history of the world. In this unblinking look at the past and present of Texas prisons, crucial questions are raised: Does the Texas prison system do what the people of Texas want it to do? Does it rehabilitate? Do our prisons make our society safe? Can we win the war on drugs? Is education synonymous with rehabilitation? Will Texas always have a need for the death penalty? You may not agree with the author's answers to these questions, but you won't be able to forget the stark reality of his story. Lon Bennet Glenn began his career with the Texas Prison System in 1966, when at the age of twenty-one he signed on as prison guard at the Clemens Unit in Brazoria County. As he worked his way through the ranks to the position of warden, the prison system underwent tremendous change. Glenn, now of Angleton, Texas, has survived the convicts, the politicians, the press, arbitrary prison administrations, lawyers, and federal courts to tell a story that the public deserves to know.

Product Details

• Paperback: 450 pages
• Publisher: Eakin Pr; 1ST edition (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571685227
• ISBN-13: 978-1571685223
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,746,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The first honest insight into our Texas prison mess., July 3, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Largest Hotel Chain in Texas: Texas Prisons (Paperback)

Lon Glenn really tells it how it was and is. As a former, and, thankfully, retired Texas Department of Corrections supervisor, this book gives the employees' side of the working conditions of a rapidly expanding prison system which is mired in trying to implement Judge Willaim Wayne Justice's impractical rulings concerning prisoner treatment and how it has completely changed into a day care center. This book is a real eye opener for any taxpayer who believes his money has been used for rehabilitation. The system has gone from giving an offender a reason to rehabilitate and re-enter society and be a useful person to simple warehousing with no incentives whatsoever. During the past 17 years, TDC has gone from self supporting, low recidivism, to running in the red, non-self supporting, with one of the highest return rates in the nation. In 1984, the prison system housed 46,000 inmates, with 26 prisons. Today, there are over 146,000 inmates with 100 units, not withstanding the special units for medical care. If you want to know where your tax dollar is going, this book is a must read....

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Really Good Read! ! !, July 29, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Largest Hotel Chain in Texas: Texas Prisons (Paperback)

There is a strain of downhome American wisdom that is regularly dispensed from small town coffee shops, main street barber shops, courthouse lawns, rural churchyards, roadside beer joints and country music lyrics. Be fair; work hard; don't cheat; help your neighbor - and if need arises, be ready to kick some butt.

This downhome wisdom says actions should have consequences, and the two should correspond. Good actions should have good consequences; bad actions, bad consequences. But life doesn't always work that way.

Lon Glenn spurts downhome wisdom like ketchup from a bottle, and you'll find some on just about every one of the 392 pages of the retired warden's memoir of 30 years in "Texas Prisons -- The Largest Hotel Chain in Texas".

Glenn's got some good stories to tell, and he delivers them with a strong voice and a keen wit. The narrative is aided by dozens of historical photographs (including the graphic crime scene record of inmate Clarence W. Redwine's head resting on a dining room table several feet away from the body from which it had just been detached by an inmate wielding a cane knife).

There are tales of prison lore -- work bucks, manhunts, heroism, treachery, mayhem, murder, tough convicts and tougher lawmen. There is a glossary of prison slang that gives the reader a better sense of what it means to do hard time. If all this book had were the stories, it would be a good read. But there is more. From the vantage point of his experience, Glenn offers hard analysis of how the Texas prison system reached its current crisis state -- a system on the verge of a breakdown that will make Attica and Santa Fe pale by comparison.

The chief culprit, according to Glenn, is Judge William Wayne Justice, the federal jurist who dismantled the Texas prison system in the Ruiz v. Estelle case, leaving a prison power vacuum that was quickly filled by violent inmates at the expense of the dwindling ranks of litigation-bound officers.

Politicians, lawyers and corrupt administrators share the blame for not fixing the troubles, and should be held accountable for what Glenn views as the inevitable collapse of the Texas prison system.

"I am confident that when future historians write about the decline and fall of the criminal justice system in Texas, the failure of those who were in a position to do something to prevent it will be listed as the principal cause."

In the course of making his case, Glenn weighs in on capital punishment, rehabilitation, the U.S. "war on drugs," and criminal insanity. (His views on the drug war may surprise you.)

Dedicated to the officers of Texas Department of Criminal Justice -- Institutional Division, the book includes the 27 tenets of "Glenn's Law." Examples:

"Always maintain a reverent and respectful appreciation for the tenacity of ignorance."

"Having someone you trust watching your back makes all things seem possible."

Lon Glenn has our back. Anyone with a stake in the future of the Texas prison system -- and that's all of us -- should read his book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great book, February 12, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Largest Hotel Chain in Texas: Texas Prisons (Paperback)

I really enjoyed this book.The history of Texas prisons is fascinating.As a Texas correctional officer I know that many of the author's opinions and concerns are shared by officers still working for the state of Texas. While you may not agree with some of the author's opinions this book as a whole is interesting reading.